March 17, 2024
How much a simple seed can teach us about the mystery of our own lives, with the disappointments, letting go and deaths we experience.
This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable. It has not been verified by the author.
God often speaks to us through nature. And so is this rain saying anything to us? Well, one thing I mean, it’s a little bit inconvenient, it’s a little bit uncomfortable. But maybe that’s kind of a formation, that the path we are choosing is not a path that is easy. But it’s a path of sacrifice, a path of sacrifice. But I think there’s another lesson. We need rain so desperately here. We are here at the Mission of Divine Mercy, like a lot of places here in the hill country, we depend on our wells, and a lot of our wells are running dry. And so that great rain we had just last night. And this gentle rain that we’re getting right now, is not only a blessing, for a blessing, a physical blessing that is desperately needed. But I think it’s like a sign of God’s graces, of God’s graces that are being given on this day. “Now is the time of judgment on this world. Now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” And I think these words have special significance for us right now, today. Jesus is saying this just a few days before His passion. And so would it seem the opposite, when the disciples who were seeing Jesus arrested and crucified, it would have seemed the opposite. It wasn’t the judgment. It wasn’t the ruler of the world who has been driven out. It was Jesus Himself, who has been condemned, and crucified, judged, condemned, and crucified. And evil seemed triumphant for a few days. But it was only temporary. Jesus passion was manifesting the deep evil that was even in His people, and especially in the religious leaders of His people. And His death was making His condemnation by those religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, the chief priests and scribes and Pharisees was manifesting, how deep was that evil, that they who should have been the instruments of God, were judging and condemning God Himself. And so Jesus death was actually revealing that evil, revealing how evil it was. But it was also manifesting the depth of His love, of His truth, of His fidelity, faithful until death. And there was a moment which called everyone in Jerusalem had to make a decision. Do we go along with the authorities? Or do we go with Jesus? We can’t just stay in the mushy middle. We have to make a decision, a need to choose. And this momentary condemnation of Jesus led to His eternal exaltation, that no power could destroy. And I think this has a lot of significance for what we’re living right now. Because we’re living in a world in which, in many ways, evil seems triumphant. And the Church seems to be dying. And it’s manifesting evil. A lot of evil is feeling confident that it can come out into the open. It doesn’t have to hide anymore. It’s coming out into the open. And even in our Church, and even in the pastors of the Church. A lot of evil is being manifested. And so that’s very discouraging because it seems like it was triumphing. But it needs to be that way. So the evil can become clearer so that people can wake up and see it, and realize we have to make a choice before the victory of God comes. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” Jesus said in the Gospel today. But how is he going to be glorified? And it gives us this unusual example. I mean, think of that, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. What would you expect to follow after that? Because it’s unusual what he says, Here’s what he says, We just heard it today. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” So that seems very simple, a grain of wheat falling into the ground. But Jesus reveals that there’s a lot of mystery in that. And so let’s take a moment to reflect on the story, the history of that little seed, of that grain of wheat, because it’s a dramatic story. So we see this very calmly. But imagine, imagine yourself as that little grain of wheat, if it could, if it was conscious, as it begins to be aware, it realized that it finds itself a very small green, hidden in the leaf sheath. And then gradually, it begins to emerge, it’s growing up, it’s filling out, it begins to surpass the leaves. And then becomes changing colors as it becomes now golden, enjoying being able to soak up the sun, swaying with the breeze, thinking maybe I’m doing so well, I’ve made so much progress, I’m going to just keep on like this getting bigger and higher. And then it stops growing. And then all of a sudden, without warning, something devastating comes and all the sheaths of wheat are cut down. And so this grain which had been up there enjoying the sun, and the wind falls, down, down, down, losing its height, losing the sunshine, in the wind, falling onto the ground now. How humiliating from being up. Now, lying on the ground, buried in depth in the darkness. How traumatic that experience was. And he sees all around that it’s happening to all the other grains, like it’s brothers and sisters are all experiencing the same. It’s like the end of the world for it. And then as it’s lying there in the ground, it begins to rain. (So sorry for all the little grains of wheat who are out there in the rain. (it begins to rain hard) But then something happens, which it had never experienced. It softens. It swells. Something is beginning to change inside of it. Something deep is beginning to change. And then something begins to push forth from its shell. And now this grain of wheat is being emptied. What a frightening experience, losing its smooth beauty, losing its strength, its firmness, its solidity and character. It’s dying. And then a very small bud, tender white and then gradually becoming green begins to emerge and a grain of wheat is disappearing. But from it comes many, many, many grains of wheat which will all be fruitful and multiply. For us, the story of the grain of wheat is not very dramatic, because we know what happens, but how different it is for the grains. How terrifying. We know though that experience is not the destruction of the grain, but it is its fulfillment. What the grain feels like trauma and devastation and death, we see as the fulfillment of the grain. “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Here that – if it dies, it bears much fruit. If it doesn’t die, it won’t bear fruit. And so this example gives us an example of the difference between the way we see our life and the way God sees it. And so things which can be so terrifying for us because we don’t see the future. And God sees it so differently. The losses that we experience in our life, the different ways that we experience death, death which sometimes comes very suddenly. And sometimes it’s a long process of slowly getting weaker, losing our abilities, losing our positions. And not just physically but interiorly. Having to let go of things, let go of relationships, let go of expectations and hopes, losing so much. Sometimes this only happens in the very last stages of life. Sometimes it happens much earlier. But this painful experience, which we all live in one way or another. And there’s advantages to not waiting to live it at the very end. But living it earlier is actually an opportunity. What seems to us just destruction is an opportunity. For what? To surrender ourselves, to abandon ourselves to God, giving up our efforts at human control that we’re trying to hold on so tightly to. Remember the words of our Lord on the cross, “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.” Into your hands, I commend my spirit. In this whole process, this has been a very dramatic process that the Mission of Divine Mercy has been going through. For months we anticipated that this was coming, But it’s still very traumatic, because we’ve been working at the Mission of Divine Mercy for 23 years, over 23 years. We’re putting all of that on the line, we could lose all of that, all of it could be destroyed. My own vocation could be destroyed, the vocation of all our community members, the work that all our staff has done, all of that could be destroyed. We’re putting all of that on the line. And so this abandonment is something that we have to learn every day. And as every day, especially these days, my stomach is churning. When they are reading me that decree, my stomach is churning. I’m trying to look calm externally and feeling. And so this when the Lord what many years ago is about 20 years ago, so the Lord gave us three spiritual foundations for the Mission of Divine Mercy. One is mercy. One is faith. And you know what the other one was. The other one was abandonment, abandonment to God, trusting Jesus, I trust in you. Trusting enough to surrender ourselves, to abandon ourselves into the hands of our Father. And again, this whole process has been for us, trying to put that into practice, and it’s a daily struggle to abandon ourselves to God. He’s told us that, and he’s given us a number of messages because, and especially in recent months, and he says over and over again, do not be afraid. Do not fear. All is in my hands. I am in control, I am acting, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Why do you think he has to keep repeating that? I go back and read those words over and over and okay. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Calm down. He’s in control. So this abandonment opens us up to something completely new. Not just being productive and getting things done. But being fruitful, divinely fruitful, letting God bring forth from us new life. In this new life, especially comes after death, even for Jesus, in the reading we heard, (God must be pouring out, lots of graces right now, lots of graces – rain is falling harder) in the reading we heard today, “Son though He was, he learned obedience from what he suffered. And when He was made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.” He who loves His life loses it. He who hates his life in this world, will keep it for eternal life. (And he who gets drenched for going to Mass, will receive a lot of graces) A lot of people are experiencing a lot of losses in their lives, in our society, in the Church. But this is an opportunity for us to abandon ourselves to God, offering ourselves to Him. From these losses, He can bring forth life. God wants to exalt us, God wants to exalt His children, but He needs us to abandon ourselves to Him. And I want to read to you a little message that he gave us in 2022. And it’s just now that we have more freedom that we can finally begin sharing with you messages. So we’ve posted four public messages, because the Lord has given us a whole bunch more that we’ve wanted to share, and we haven’t been able to. So I’ll just give you a little one right now. This was given to our community a few years ago. Do not despair, my little flock, my little handful, my chosen seeds. So listen to what he’s saying, do not despair. What does that tell you about what we were feeling? It was very hard. So the Lord’s telling us don’t despair. And listen to what he says, My chosen seeds, submerged in the darkness of this hostile earth without seeing anything but the dryness, the darkness, the sterility. That’s what we’ve been living. That’s what our little mission has been living, submerged in the darkness of this hostile earth. Without seeing anything, God had made very many promises to us. But we had to wait. We didn’t know when they were going to begin. And as he says, without seeing anything, but the dryness, the darkness, the sterility. And so many times we have people coming out to the mission, and they would say to us, we feel so much peace here, we feel so much the presence of God. And we were very thankful for that. Because we were experiencing dryness, and darkness, and sterility. And as the archbishop said in his letter, we were very aware that there hadn’t been many vocations to our community. We were experiencing that sterility. And the archbishop wanted to make you all aware of that also. So if you haven’t noticed, we’re a small community. But then what did he say? He says the Divine dew is about to descend. And it will and so is this rain, a sign of that this is not a divine dew, this divine outpour. The divine dew is about to descend, we didn’t know when. And it will revive you, making you green again and fruitful. And it will leave you strong. Inhale for the hour, in which my truth shall be proclaimed to the four winds, and all shall see us. And I think that is happening now. And I can I apologize, what’s not my fault, but I apologize for the rain. You know, whose fault that is. Of course, I’m not to mention names, but uh. But it’s a sign of this divine dew that’s falling, and he says, and it will revive you. And we are being revived. This has been very challenging, you know, with the response to the frustration and so forth. That’s very challenging and people saying they were disobedient and so forth. But your response, your faith, your support, and that of so many people we’re hearing from, so many people, even other countries is reviving us. We are feeling revived right now. And you are doing that, you are helping us live again. He says making you green and fruitful it will leave you strong and well for the hour in which my truth shall be proclaimed to the four winds. And that is happening now. Just a little message. I mean, we’re learning how these messages are being and we have people from all over saying I have so many 1000s of people on my mailing list and my group on my podcast and so forth. And like in France and Italy and Spain and Ireland and other places, and you’re saying I’m spreading it to them. And so, this is going out way beyond anything that we could have done. So, as I say this, I mean, this is a momentous moment, and you all are here at this early stage. So to conclude, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” In our life, there are many losses, many deaths. Because we can’t, they’re especially painful because we can’t see the big picture. But Jesus reveals that the big picture and the power of abandonment to God, taking us beyond the limits of what we can see and understand and do by ourselves. And so with our Lord Jesus Christ, with our Blessed Mother, in this Mass, in the offertory, especially of this Mass, which is coming in just a few moments, it’s an opportunity for you to abandon yourself to the Father, to give Him all your pains, all your humiliations, all your heartbreaks, all your anxieties, all your doubts, all your struggles, to abandon that to Him. So that the Holy Spirit can help us bear much fruit for ever and ever. Jesus, we trust in you. Amen.
KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
John 12:20-33
Hebrews 5:7-9